Al'terra (Literature)
Popular Literature While there are plenty of popular accounts - non-fiction works which might be on the brink of new information and discovery, such as the Half-Dreaming Thought, and the Cross Over. While Al'terrans prefer non fiction and keep up to date with newspapers, they do like Fictional works that delve into sophisticated themes of nature and intelligence. Current works everyone is reading is the Three Tales of Love, A thought on thought on stupidity, and When We Hit Halfway Historical Literature Historical literature in Al'terra is a collection of works read rather universally by everyone. They include the 'Ode of Nine' which gives the back story of all the deities including the common legends, 'The Board Manuscript' which is a long piece of work written about the maths and sacredness of 64 and the alternating pattern of the board, 'The Al'terran Nature' which is the original formation proclamation of Al'terra, the 'Trallan Records' which go into the royal lines of the Al'terrans. Newspaper So our Al'terrian friends like to be informed. What is the worst thing you could do to them? Library strike! Publication ban! Book burning! It was put to me recently that I need to explain mass publishing of newspapers, something I glazed over in my last work. This is a world building blog and this is the time and place to share such a thing. First, though, a bit about newspapers. A newspaper is something you would pick up in the morning and there are two dozen major ones found in Tantus and across Al'terra, some are region specific or city specific as you would expect. They contain things about politics, finances (tax dollars), foreign relations, trade, book recommendations, weather reports, and brain teasers (think sudoku on the hardest level). Noticeably there is usually nothing about crime, because there is usually nothing about crime. These papers are considered reliable and although have slight bends to them (don’t all papers?) they are considered relatively neutral. There are afternoon papers called ‘sunhighs’ or 'sunnies’ which are more lighthearted and contain more things like recipes and book reviews as opposed to finances. In the evening, you can pick up nightwords, which are usually specialized to region or similar to a personal blog, and are very very specific. It might be something that only follows the movements of the King for instance, or keeps an eye on one particular dock. All these things are bought at stores, rarely delivered, and you can buy three days old before they are destroyed. As for their actual printing. Small time publishers hand write their work and take it to a printing house and commission a number of copies - the work is taken from hand to print pressing by workers (either very low class or children as this is actual labour and looked down on). If the work is too large to be committed to paper (such as large newspapers) it is often sent by cat messenger, though this is expensive and requires a reader on both ends to facilitate transport. This is how larger papers are printed in multiple cities. Generally for a morning paper the work is transcribed in the previous evening, printed and distributed all night. People tend to read two major papers and perhaps some additional sunnies and nightwords, depending on their occupation and time. This is the source for most polite conversation. Hand writing is done with a cla on the pointer finger typically (other fingers can be used) and contain ink within them - this descended from actual claws dipped in blood. The relatively unknown method of the gripping an isntrument might be found in Al'terra but rarely. Out of respect to Septavians, feathers have never been used to write.